Saturday, March 29, 2008

Another Hollywood ‘Failure’

Great reviews for Stop Loss, but....

....the general public just don’t buy it.

I’m told #7 Stop-Loss opened to only $1.6 million Friday from just 1,291 plays and should eke out $4+M. Although the drama from MTV Films was the best-reviewed movie opening this weekend, Paramount wasn’t expecting much because no Iraq war-themed movie has yet to perform at the box office.”—Commentor

So. What did you expect? From another anti-American POS.

As for the concept behind the film....

...that once you’ve sworn to lay down your very life to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States, against all enemies—foreign and domestic—you’re ‘out’ when your ETS arrives?

How dense are you anyway?

Once you’ve shown you’ve got more courage than those who never took that oath, why should US forget?

On another note....were you, or your parents or friends, asleep during Gulf War 1? They used Stop Loss then.

As for me. I know I could be called back at ANY time, if the government felt I had something they needed. And I’m quite prepared to do it, should they send that call. In my case it is not called “Stop Loss”. Rather, it is called ‘Operation CERTAIN SAGE’. I even practiced it once.

As one sergeant I knew would put it, “Shut up and soldier.”

“‘It’s not looking good, a studio source told me before the weekend. ‘No one wants to see Iraq war movies. No matter what we put out there in terms of great cast or trailers, people were completely turned off. It’s a function of the marketplace not being ready to address this conflict in a dramatic way because the war itself is something that’s unresolved yet. It’s a shame because it’s a good movie that’s just ahead of its time.’—Commentor, citing some studio shill

Oh. Great. Another studio hack with his evasions and obfuscations.

The only reason this movie, like so many others of its ilk, is ‘failing’ is because it is, as they are, nothing more than anti-American propaganda. And SHAME on Paramount and other such studios and their staffs and management for attempting such.

If they hate America so much, let them practice their craft in Communist China.

Either that or take the pledge to become a Muslim. [Note: I’d really like to see what they’d think of being ‘cut off’ from all those Hollywood starlet bimbos by Sharia law.]

Personally? I don’t see this as a ‘failure’. I see it as a re-affirmation that Americans still love their lives and their country and are not as stupid as Hollywood and other such propagandists would like to believe. It reminds me of Lord of the Rings, wherein Gandalf comments, that the men of the West are not as weak as Sauron would like to think. That there is still strenght. And Sauron—or his latter-day ilk—fear this.

Saturday, March 22, 2008

Turn Your Living Room Into a HAZMAT Incident Site

The unintended consequences of going for the new Compact Florescent Light (CFL) bulbs

An interesting article in the Chieftain today. It’s all about what are the immediate and long-term actions to take in the event that you or your child or your idiot cat knock-over a lamp and cause a CFL bulb to break.

The story is not very pretty. And certainly not something that we hear from all these people pushing these wonders of modern technology on us.

The upshot is that once the bulb breaks, you’ve turned that room into a hazardous materials (HAZMAT) site. You have to evacuate all children and animals from the area. Open all windows and doors to ventilate the mercury vapor. Clean the area of all shards and, if you’ve got a $5000 oriental rug there, cut out the affected portion and dispose of it. Won’t THAT look nice. Better buy a larger end-table to cover the missing piece.

If you were foolish enough to use your $300 vacuum cleaner to clean up the shards, you have to trash it and buy a new one.

That mercury is nasty stuff.

Maybe Congress should have been a bit more careful about passing that legislation requiring us to move to this technology.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

No More ‘Magic’?

L’esprit Gallic comes in a $35B shoe size

Seems that only a few days after the US Department of Defense announced a deal to buy the [European] Airbus mid-air refueling tanker—over the [US] Boeing offering—the French Foreign Minister, Mssr. Bernard Kouchner, is determined to queer the deal.

In an interview about his concept of the ‘new’ [Note: What a misnomer....] diplomacy he said....

Asked whether the United States could repair the damage it has suffered to its reputation during the Bush presidency and especially since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Kouchner replied, “It will never be as it was before.”

“I think the magic is over,” he continued, in what amounted to a sober assessment from one of the strongest supporters in France of the United States.

If he’s supposed to be of the ‘strongest supporters’, I’m a member of Densa. This is just the sameo-sameo for the French. There is nothing ‘new’ here, except the speaker and the signage behind him. The French have always been and, apparently, always will be for themselves first and everyone else can go to blazes. As a case in point, I will remind the reader that up until the French realized that Iran could very well have a nuclear weapon in the near future, they were adamantly opposed to doing anything to stop that weapons program. Now that they see the truth of the matter, they finally decided that maybe....just MAYBE....US is right about Iran. And maybe Iran might give such a device to some of those ‘youths’ who’ve been burning cars and shooting police in and around their beloved Paris. Oops!

In truth, all the good foreign minister of France is doing is practicing the usual spirit of the Galls. And, as usual, it tends to be bilious. I’m reminded of the famous axiom....

Never give money to a bad debtor. He will despise you

.

I would hope that the recently inked defense contract over the purchase of $35 billion in aircraft is revocable. This will give the good foreign minister of France something to ‘chew on’, i.e., foot in mouth.

Monday, March 10, 2008

Hypocrisy In Legal Education?

Why does Professor Glenn Reynolds care?

It seems odd to me that someone who supports the legalization of prostitution should even mention that Governor Spitzer (D-NY) has been caught in a prostitution ring scandal.

After all, if one supports the idea of legalizing prostitution, most people would think that the only thing that would cross that person’s mind upon hearing this sort of report would be, “Too bad for the guy. If only we had legalized prostitution earlier, he wouldn’t be put through this public pillory.”

Rather, the good professor of law at the University of Tennessee points out the, as probably most Democrats see it, little peccadillo.

Maybe he anticipated the interesting convolutions of other Democrats running for office this year....that DOES seem to be what’s happening.

UPDATE From Various Perspectives [101452 Mar 08]:

From the perspective of moral issues, I tend to believe as I understand former President Harry S. Truman believed, when he reputedly said, “He broke his promise to his wife. Why should I expect him to keep his promise to me?” This, when firing one of his cabinet members for adultery.

Or as some Wag said, around 2000 years ago, “If you are not faithful in the small things, how can you be faithful in the big things?” [Note: See the parable of the ‘talents’.] You know.... If you can’t keep a promise to your wife, how can we expect you to keep a promise—to uphold your state Constitution and perform your duties of office—to the rest of us?

From a political perspective, the Instapundit is reporting some interesting doings amongst the various political candidates who were once happy to associate with the Governor of New York.

From the legal perspective, something the professor knows more about than I, Spitzer is in deep do-do; this is a violation of the Mann Act of 1910; interstate commerce in human traffick. I guess if it were legalized, as the professor wants, the federal government could regulate and tax it.